Child Psyc., Lec. 2 8-28

Three families in textThe nature of development

Orderly, cumulative, directionalHeinz Werner

Qualitative versus Quantitative changeQualitative – may involve reorganization

Normative versus individualFrameworks

EvolutionaryHeredity and Environment

Six major theories of developmentPiagetInformation-Processing theoriesSociocultural theoriesPsychoanalyticSocial LearningBowlby’s adaptational

Stories of Three Families

• Focus groups with community members and developmental psychologists.

• Professional writers• Although they have been updated you may

find them somewhat out of date• Limited diversity

• The nature of development– Orderly, – cumulative, – directional

Heinz Werner (1890-1964)

• Differentiation and Hierarchic Integration• Spiral of Development

Qualitative versus Quantitative Change

• Quantitative Change– Size, weight, strength, number of words in vocabulary

• Qualitative Change (emergence and reorganization)– No language to language– Not walking to walking– Sense of self

• Is it an issue of development or of they type of theoretical concepts.

Normative versus Individual Development

• Normative—average• Individual development

– Variation in rate– Differences in course of development– (capital, alienation, and challenge)

Frameworks for Conceptualizing Development

• Evolutionary– Adaptation

• Heredity and Environment– Always both (language example)– The influence goes both ways

• How you experience the environment• Genes that are selected• Genes that are expressed (epigenisis)

Six Major Theories of Development

– Piaget– Information-Processing theories– Sociocultural theories– Psychoanalytic– Social Learning– Bowlby’s adaptational

Piaget’s Theory (1896 – 1980)

• Trained in Biology• Interested in what he called Genetic Epistomology• Thought he could solve the major issues in a decade

or two but spent his life working on it.• Focused on Qualitative Change in cognition• Strong advocate of an interactionist position

regarding nature and nurture• Constructivist theory

Piaget’s theory (cont.)

• Structural Invariants– Adaptation (assimilation and accommodation)– Organization– Equilibration

• Stage theory: “If we now consider only the principal periods of development, one can enumerate three of them” Piaget, J. (1970) Piaget’s theory. In Charmichael’s Manual of Child Psychology.– Sensorimotor operations– Concrete operations– Formal Operations

Information Processing Theory

• Based on Atkinson & Shiffrin (1969) model

• Input->Sensory Memory-> Short-term memory<->Long-term Memory

• Book says the focus is on quantitive change, which was true initially but now involves both quantitative and qualitative change– Bob Sigler’s work on addition

Atkinson & Shiffrin (The Modal Model)

• Information processing approaches

Each of these systems is separate

Lev Vygosky (1896—1934) and Sociocultural theory

• Importance of social context of development• Quantitative and qualitative change• Little focus on nature/nurture issue

– Social speech->private speech->inner speech– Zone of proximal development– Scaffolding

• Rogoff—learning through observing and participation

Psychoanalytic Theory

• Freud (1856 – 1939)– Id – there from the beginning– Ego and Superego – develop over time– Psychosexual stages

• Erikson (1902 – 1994)– Similar to freud– Stages address a broader range of issues– Dealt explicitly with differences among cultures

Stage Age Freud’s Psychosexual Stages

Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages

1 0 -- 1 Oral Basic trust vs. mistrust

2 1 -- 3 Anal Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt

3 3 – 6 Phallic Initiative vs. Guilt

4 7 -- 11 Latency Industry vs. Inferiority

5 12 – 18 Genital Identity vs. Role Confusion

6 Young adulthood

Intimacy vs. Isolation

7 Adulthood Generativity vs. Stagnation

8 Maturity/Old Age

Ego integrity vs. Despair

Social Learning TheoryAlbert Bandura (1925 -- )

• Outgrowth of Learning Theory• The course of development is a consequence of a child’s

particular learning history• Increased the number of learning mechanisms which function

throughout the lifespan– Immitation– Observational learning

• Characteristics of the situation, the person modeling a behavior or providing reinforcement, the relationship of the learner to others, and a variety of other characteristics are all moderators of learning.

Bowlby’s (1908 – 1990) Adaptational Theory

• Influenced by Freud and Darwin• Babies arrive with predispositions• Early social relationships are key to later

development.• Cognitive skills and the development of an

inner working model guide social behavior.• “Attachment” is a key concept.

Major Issues

• Gradual versus stage models of development.• The relative importance of early versus

current experience in guiding development.• Specificity versus generality of developmental

acquisitions.